BUSINESS PROFILE ? SUCCESS_ HORWOOD-BUX’S TOP FIVE TIPS FOR SUCCESS Belief – in herself, her ideas and the inherent opportunities the business world offers – plays a big role in Horwood-Bux’s success. :: WALK THE TALK “I’ve worked with a whole range of personalities and I’ve discovered there are people who just talk the talk and then there are those who do things. Seek the latter or you’ll waste a lot of time.” :: BELIEVE IN YOUR BRAND Andrea Horwood-Bux and her husband, Adil Bux, are business as well as life partners: he’sMDof their company,Ganehill. “People have toldme that I’m able to convince people to come along with me on the ride and get behind these projects. If that’s true, it’s down to a natural enthusiasm for the business – I can only be this driven about projects I really believe in. It also helps to have like-minded people on board.” transparent on the skin while retaining their sun-blocking properties. Despite this breakthrough, the company had struggled for years with little success to take its ZinClear-IM product to market. “At the time, we were starting a family,” says Horwood-Bux. “We didn’t really have a plan to start a new business, but the more we discovered about the technology – and why the scientists felt it was something that was important, something that should be in every Australian’s cupboard – the more compelling it became.” Particularly interesting was the idea that they could create a product that would offer real health benefits to a potentially global market. “I wasn’t interested in contributing something to the marketplace that people didn’t need, and I don’t get excited about doing something for three people,” she says. “Part of the appeal was that it had the potential to be very big.” Given Australia’s soaring skin cancer rates, Horwood-Bux not only wanted every Invisible Zinc product to meet Australia’s stringent and world-leading regulatory standards and be listed with the Therapeutic Goods Administration (the Government body that ensures the quality, safety and efficacy of all medicines and therapeutic goods sold in Australia), she wanted the products to help change the way Australians use sunscreen. “I felt very strongly about what sorts of products we should develop,” she says. “Sunscreen is something people should wear every day, which is why wemake cosmetic hybrid products that mean you don’t have to layer your foundation over the top, and why our latest products have anti-ageing properties.” As well as face and body sunscreen, Invisible Zinc’s range now includes a tinted daily moisturiser and lip and cheek balm, sunless tanning mist and new skin protector and environmental repair serums, incorporating antioxidants to help soothe and repair the skin. The first sunscreen to bemarketed as a beauty product, Invisible Zinc launched in late 2003 – and hit the ground running. The company’s headquarters, tucked along one of Perth’s quaint shopping strips, may be a world away frombig-name glamour :: BACK YOUR ABILITIES “I like to think there’s an even playing field for women in business: it’s justa matter of proving your capabilities, whatever you do. I’ve certainly been in positions where people underestimated what I can do – and sometimes that worked in my favour.” :: REALISE THAT PASSION IS PARAMOUNT “I’mless fanatical now than I once was, but Invisible Zinc also takes an unreal level of passion. I don’t think people really appreciate the commitment of entrepreneurs. Not many people are willing to do it – give their time, their own money, even the house, if needed.” :: LOOK FORWARD “I never want to live in the past and talk of ‘all the great things we did’ – [that way] you run the risk of having already done the best thing you’re going to do.” NOVEMBERVOYEUR 117